Shinobi Sin
by TaintedMoonlight
Summary: It's the dark creeping terror of his actions that consumes him whole. Or it will, at one point or another, he knows that all the things he's done will destroy him.


**_Shinobi Sin_**

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_I'm okay if I don't look a little closer  
I'm okay I if don't see beyond the shore  
I'm okay I don't have to do the killing or  
Know what the killing is for_

_-- Indigo Girls "Perfect World"_

The more apathy that overtakes Nara Shikamaru, the more disgust and contempt that settles into the pit of his stomach.

Someone has to do it.

He knows.

He can do it, and do it well; it only makes sense that he be the one to deliver such…distasteful scenarios.

There's a reason he puts on the demeanor of indifference that he does. If he can stop caring, he can stop feeling the pulsing anger and hate that threatens to devour him whole. The self-loathe.

Some nights he stares at his hands; they shake, terribly so and he swears he can see the red on his hands.

The sticky, matted, warm blood spilling across his hands.

Even though he's never really used his hands to kill.

Not his real ones anyway.

The shadow, _his_ shadow, is the one stained with his sins.

His crime.

Sometimes Shikamaru hates his shadow.

Hates all shadows.

He's a shinobi; such things shouldn't run across his mind.

He knows he shouldn't be concerned with the morals of his actions, just do as he's told.

Sometimes he wonders about the perverse attitudes of his parents. Of the disposition of all shinobi parents. They encourage their children to travel down the ninja path – _the shinobi way_. They encourage young naïve kids to choose a lifestyle that is darker and more disparaging than any other. He wonders what they think as they tell them to choose this lifestyle. Is it their revenge? Are they are so disgusted with themselves they choose to push their sins_, their horrors_, onto another generation, so they alone will not have to bear the heavy burden?

That's why his father drinks.

His mother doesn't understand.

She couldn't, she's not a shinobi.

But his father swallows and drowns his loathe in a bottle.

Shikamaru could do the same, he supposes, but burying one sin with another hardly seems worth the momentary relief.

Screams invade his dreams.

Blood crawls into his every pore.

And hate, _hate,_ becomes so common he's forgotten any other emotion.

Its better, he thinks, not to feel.

To pretend.

To ignore, and let it all fade away.

His shadow slinks up the body of the weakened person.

The person's eyes beg him, _plead_.

"Mercy." He implores.

Shikamaru feels nothing.

The person before him shouldn't die.

No.

But does it matter?

It shouldn't to a shinobi.

The shadow hands close around the neck.

Shikamaru doesn't avert his gaze.

His punishment.

He should have the courage to look upon the sin he's committing.

Feeling.

That's the problem he supposes.

That and thinking.

If Shikamaru didn't think so much, he wouldn't question what he was doing; he wouldn't need to figure out why he was doing what he was ordered to. If he could stop thinking and take a mission without all the extra bothersome knowledge, he could complete each mission happily, and return home with a sunny disposition.

Not that he thinks all shinobi are so stupid that they don't realize. Every shinobi, at one point or another, realizes a cruel misdeed they are ordered to.

Realizes it is their job to accomplish a sin.

A dreadful one.

The difference between him and them, is that Shikamaru sees a sin in almost every act. He's able to find the transgression that they hope is buried down deep enough with tangled, heavy lies.

It's the thinking that lets him know.

It's the feeling that makes his disposition a bitter one. A furious, angry, scornful one.

He's so angry.

_At himself._

He hates himself.

So he covers it with as much apathy as he can muster. If he can only stop feeling, this will get easier.

He hopes two things as he watches the person before him slowly asphyxiate.

That this may numb him to future actions.

And that just forcing himself to watch, will cleanse a bit of his soul.

He knows what he is doing is wrong.

Morally, terribly wrong.

But someone has to do it.

Someone has to let the creeping monster of hate settle in their souls and devour its host bit by bit, until all that's left is the defense mechanism the host has chosen.

One day, Nara Shikamaru knows, he'll just be a shell of a human being.

He'll have stopped feeling.

And knowing.

And caring.

He'll just be a body.

A body without any heart or soul.

And that, _that_ scares him the most.

But for all the ill he's done, he deserves it.

The body falls to the floor.

Another mission completed.

Another piece of his soul – gone.

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**A/N:** I wrote this today, looking at songs, I came across the one at the top and decided I _needed_ to write someting. It's kinda dark, I know, but despite it's odd qualities I think it came out okay. What do you think?

On a side note, _Woo-hoo_, no hints at any romantic anything's!! That's a first for me. Oh and check out the song, I think it's really pretty, the meaning anyway.


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